"The ‘Jesus is Lord’ balloon has been lowered a bi…
“The ‘Jesus is Lord’ balloon has been lowered a bit, probably in fear of being struck by lightning. Oh, the sweet irony of it all.”
From the website Blogging the Concon,(via tinmanic.com) an interesting read. Although I’m not really very active in showing my support for marriage equality, I do find the antics of those folks protesting against it facinating, even mind-boggling. There are no cogent arguments, no appeals to logic, nothing at all to sway any reasonable person to their point of view. It’s all fire-and-brimstone, “It makes Jesus cry”-type rhetoric, with maybe a slippery-slope argument thrown in here and there, and yet half of America seems to be won over to their side. Amazing, simply amazing. Willing, popular ignorance of uncomfortable facts seems to be that society’s strong point.
It occurs to me that one way Taiwan could gain the international human-rights spotlight it craves would be to legalize same-sex marriages, especially given that, without such stringent Puritan values, opposition here doesn’t seem to be as fervent or violent as it does in the US. And Chen Shui-bian could also use it to distract people from all the recent scandal allegations surrounding his administration. The reality is, however, that such human rights promotion under this administration is about 99% talk and 1% walk, i.e. for display purposes only, so I doubt much will happen on that front.
I read something (by a sociologist I think) to the effect that traditionally in (greater) China homosexuality was tolerated as long as it didn’t interfere with a man’s responsibility to marry and reproduce. If this is the case, and I don’t know that it was or still is, it would seem that same-sex marriage would be no more welcome in China than in the US, although for very different reasons. You lose the puritan morality but you still have to deal with a rigid set of family expectations/obligations. Do these no longer apply in Taiwan?
-Lennet Daigle
Comment by Anonymous — July 17, 2006 @ 5:23 pm
You’re probably right, but it seems that the topic has less of the ability to fling people into a blind rage here as it does in the US. Also, many confucian traditions seem to be falling by the wayside in recent decades, and many people see through the facade to real problems like, oh, population control in the second-most-densely populated nation in the world.
Comment by TC — July 17, 2006 @ 5:33 pm
Nice to know. I was just curious mainly. I’m in the mainland now but I’ll be moving to Taiwan soon. Seeing through the facade to the real problems is not something that the government here encourages as you know.
-Lennet
Comment by Anonymous — July 18, 2006 @ 2:35 am
I suppose that’s true enough on both sides of the strait. As I said, even here, in democratic Taiwan, it’s 99% talk and 1% walk, if that.
Comment by TC — July 18, 2006 @ 2:37 am
One of the reasons I moved here was to get away from fanatical Christians trying to convince the world that, among other ridiculous things, same-sex marriages were some nefarious plot to destroy society. I agree with you – it’s mind-boggling. Aiya….
Comment by 500CBFan — July 23, 2006 @ 7:00 am
The exist here as well; I know of people like that here.
Comment by TC — July 24, 2006 @ 4:46 am